This story has all the
makings of a fictional movie. But it is a true story, full
of tragedy, irony, heroism and surprises. It is an example
of reality surpassing anything that could be conceived by a
scriptwriter. There are readers who will recall the major
parts of the incident, but because it happened twenty seven
years ago, much of the details have been forgotten. Anyone
under the age of thirty five has probably never even heard
of it. This is about a plane crash in Northern Alberta that
killed six people, including the leader of a provincial
political party. But four others survived, lost in the cold,
snow-covered bush. They were seriously injured and facing
the real possibility of death before searchers could find
them. Three of them owe their lives to an unlikely savior, a
convict who was on that plane, guarded by a cop taking him
to jail.

October 19, 1984 was cold and wet, fairly typical in a
Northern Alberta winter. That dark night, a Piper Navajo
with ten souls on board crashed into the side of a
snow-covered, forested hill in zero visibility as the pilot
was searching for the airport at High Prairie. It was a
single-pilot IFR flight bound for the uncontrolled airport
with an NDB for a navigation aid. Using “dead reckoning” to
estimate his distance from the beacon, the pilot mistakenly
descended too early, well before crossing that beacon, and
contacted the terrain twenty miles from the airport.

Aircraft similar to the one in the
story

The crash tore the wings off and left the fuselage broken
apart. Fortunately there was no fire. Four people survived,
three of those were trapped. The only one with just minor
injuries was a 27 year old petty ex-convict named Paul
Archambault. He quickly exited the aircraft, and plowed
through deep snow to put some distance between himself and
the fuel-soaked scene. The RCMP officer who was escorting
Archambault to face some misdemeanor charges in Grand
Prairie was unconscious inside the aircraft, buried in
debris, twisted metal, snow and dirt. His decision earlier
to remove the prisoners handcuffs for the flight, ultimately
saved his life. Archambault briefly considered running to
escape, but quickly realized he wouldn’t get far in the
snow, the bush and in the dark.

The second survivor to exit the upside-down fuselage was a
49 year old man, bleeding from his battered face and head,
struggling to stand on injured legs. Several ribs and at
least one vertebra in his back were broken. His front teeth
were missing. He had unbuckled the seat belt that held him
hanging upside down and fallen to the ceiling. With the
smell of avgas heavy in the air, he pushed himself along
toward an opening where the fuselage was ripped apart. There
he fell heavily in the deep snow. Archambault had no idea
this helpless, injured soul was a cabinet minister in the
provincial government of Premier Peter Loughheed.
Meantime, the young pilot, in serious condition with chest,
hand and facial injuries, a collapsed lung, internal
bleeding and a head injury, also found himself hanging
upside down in an open space where the cockpit and nose of
the plane had been torn away. Finding it almost impossible
to breath, he managed somehow to extricate himself from the
wreckage and was able to plow his way through the deep snow
to where the politician was already leaning against the
fuselage.

Archambault had returned to the airplane by that point, and
told the two dazed and injured survivors that they had to
get the others out. He made his way back into the airplane
to find six trapped, broken, lifeless bodies. The police
officer escorting the prisoner was Scott Deschamps. The pair
had been traveling together for most of the day on a
round-about trip to get to Grande Prairie where Archambault
faced some misdemeanor charges. Now as the cop lay trapped
and smothering under snow, dirt and debris, his body twisted
and compressed so he could barely breathe, Deschamps heard
someone moving above him. Crippled with fear he called out.
A voice responded, “Are you the police officer?”
It took supreme effort, digging and pulling to extract the
broken body of the policeman from the wreckage. Somehow as
Archambault dug with his bare hands and Deschamps struggled
to the edge of his physical and mental pain threshold, he
was finally freed.

With the police officer out of immediate danger, Archambault
joined the other two men who had managed to tramp out a
small clearing in the snow about 20 meters from the plane.
Using a cardboard box and a lighter, they had a small fire
going. Archambault was the only one of the four who at that
point was thinking clearly. The others were dazed and
confused, and it fell to the prisoner to gather debris and
broken branches to keep the fire going.

The policeman’s brain was slowly clawing back to
consciousness as he sat near the fuselage finding himself
unable to stand, and could breathe only with extreme
difficulty. Archambault returned to carry and drag the cop
to the fire. He had pulled some clothing from suitcases in
the snow to make a spot to keep the man warm.

As the ELT transmitted its signal into night, the search &
rescue operation was underway by about 11 o’clock.
Visibility in the snow and fog was down to zero much of the
time, but the search plane was able to pinpoint the ELT.
Because of the cloud cover, rescuers were unable to jump to
the scene, where the three helpless, broken men, a
politician, a pilot, and a policeman, were relying on the
prisoner to keep them alive that cold winter night. None
would have survived the following day without rescue

Archambault was a petty thief, an alcohol and drug abuser,
and faced charges of criminal mischief in Grande Prairie.
More of a misguided individual, he was never classified as a
dangerous offender. He had done some time in jail, but was
not a hardened convict. He seemed to take the situation in
stride that night, likely not understanding completely the
seriousness of it all. Spending a cold night in the outdoors
wasn’t exactly a new experience for him. Other than the cop
who was guarding him, Archambault didn’t know or care who
the others were. Through the cold, dark hours it was
Archambault who kept spirits up and the fire burning. The
irony of the situation somehow escaped him.

By mid-morning the following day, a search and rescue
helicopter had evacuated all four survivors, fourteen hours
after the crash. They were all hospitalized, and eventually
recovered quite well from their injuries. Predictably, the
incident generated national headlines for several weeks. The
leader of the Alberta NDP, Grant Notley, was one of the
notable victims who died. Five others including bureaucrats,
business people and a native woman were also killed. The
petty criminal was labeled a hero, and enjoyed media
attention along with recommendations from politicians and
police that his charges be dropped. The courts went easy on
him and the notoriety helped Archambault turn his life
around for a few years. But, six years after the accident,
he had slipped back to his old habits of alcohol and drug
use. He disappeared at some point in 1990. No one reported
him missing. His body surfaced in a ditch beside a railroad
track as the snow melted in the spring of 1991.

The legal proceedings took almost twenty years and included
lawsuits against the air operator, the pilot and
surprisingly, the federal government. Transport Canada was
found 30% liable for the deaths based on having failed to
sanction the airline for its repeated violations going back
several years. In other words, TC was found guilty of not
doing its job of protecting the flying public.

The whole story of this tragic event is written in a
fascinating book entitled “INTO THE ABYSS”. I have never met
the author, Carol Shaben, but I don’t hesitate to recommend
her book. She writes a riveting account of the flight, the
crash, and the night of horror as the survivors struggled to
stay alive. Her descriptions of the main characters bring
them to believable life. Pilots will enjoy the book which is
factual, non-glossy, and speaks our language. Ms. Sheban
follows up the incident as she relates the details of the
story through the long period of time after the headlines
settled down. She did her homework. More important, she has
a personal connection to the event. Her father was one of
the survivors, the politician Larry Shaben. At the time he
was Alberta’s provincial housing minister. He lived until he
was seventy three, and died of cancer.

This accident had lasting consequences on the families of
the deceased, the survivors and on the way Transport Canada
operates. The federal government and T.C. bore part of the
responsibility. Several northern communities were shaken by
the loss of prominent citizens, and the Alberta government
mourned two of its MLS’s. A drifter and convicted criminal
earned the respect of the nation and a second chance to turn
his life around. There are many reasons why this story won’t
be forgotten.